A story on MCV with a quote in the headline (which isn't in the article itself) stating "Valve monopoly is killing PC market," reports they understand "that at least two big-name digital retailers are facing financial difficulties as they struggle to compete" with Steam. "I've fought hard for my customer, and never before have I had to give my customers away. Steam is killing the PC market and it is no wonder digital retailers are failing," says the director of a Steam rival. "Steam is locking down the market." In a separate report they also discuss retailer dissatisfaction with Steam's dominance of the marketplace, which insiders tell them amounts to 80% of PC downloadable games. Since this competes with online sales initiatives by retailers, they say at least two major U.K. merchants will demand that publishers remove Steam integration from their games or they will refuse to sell them. With PC game sales at retail stores in steady decline, it seems an odd moment for these stores to flex their atrophying muscle, but they quote the head of sales at a big-name digital service provider saying: "At the moment the big digital distributors need to stock games with Steam. But the power resides with bricks and mortar retailers, they can refuse to stock these titles. Publishers are hesitant, but retail must put pressure on them."

I'm sorry, but Amazon isn't an alternative for me. I don't live in the US or Europe and any game shipping from Amazon to Barbados is going to cost me at least half again the cost of the game in shipping(and that's being conservative).

There is a huge 'rest of the world' out there that very much appreciates what Steam has to offer.

The only people that Steam are making unhappy right now as I see it, are people on forums like this who are raging against the fact that they have to deal with DRM(however mild), can't resell or regift their games and worry over what will happen when Valve inevitably closes its doors and shuts down access to all their games.

Unfortunately, that is probably a very small minority. I have better things to do than worry about what things might be like if Steam didn't exist and there was a handy and less expensive way for me to get games. I buy the games I want on Steam or Impulse because I want to play them.

Everyone is free to vote with their wallets. And it is plain to see where people are casting their votes. Lamenting how you've been gaming for 20 years(and so have I btw) and cursing all things digitally distributed, won't change jack shit.